Allen Crabbe picked a perfect time to have a career night, even though his career is only a few nights old.

Cal's rapidly improving freshman wing nearly doubled his young career high with 30 points Thursday night as the Bears defeated Washington State 88-81 in overtime at Haas Pavilion.

The Bears needed every one of Crabbe's 30 points to offset the 36 poured in by Washington State's Klay Thompson, the Pac-10 Conference's leading scorer.

Cal improved to 9-7 with the victory (2-2 in Pac-10 play) against the Cougars (12-5, 2-3).

A three-pointer by Thompson with 13.2 seconds left in regulation tied the game at 74-74 and sent it into overtime, the shot coming from at least 26 feet out.

"It's crazy - that last three in regulation, he made that from the volleyball line," Cal point guard Brandon Smith said in admiration. "It's a 'heat check' - 'I'm on fire, I'm going to throw it up.' "

The game was tied once more in the extra period but from 76-76, the Bears put on a mini-surge with baskets from Crabbe (80-76) and center Markhuri Sanders-Frison (82-76) and, in the last 1:06, free throws by Jorge Gutierrez, Smith and Harper Kamp to keep the Cougars at bay.

Key to the win for Cal was the defense of the 5-foot-11 Smith on the 6-6 Thompson in overtime after Gutierrez drew the unenviable assignment most of regulation.

The Bears went to a box-and-one zone defense and Smith with his quickness was assigned to chase Thompson. Mission accomplished: Thompson did not attempt a shot in OT.

"In overtime, I had some fresher legs and was able to chase him and confuse Washington State and bought us some time," said Smith, who finished with nine points and nine assists. "We knew the game would come down to toughness, and we had it."

As for Crabbe, he became the first Cal freshman to score 30 in a game since Shareef Abdur-Rahim in 1995-96.

"It's big," Crabbe said of the outcome. "Having these types of stats is good, but having the win is the best thing. ... I have to be productive if I'm going to play that many minutes (44). I was hitting the shots tonight, they were going down and I just kept on shooting."

And the Bears needed him to keep shooting, since they saw a 14-point lead in the first half (34-20) and a 10-point margin in the second (60-50) evaporate behind the marksmanship of Thompson, who made 12 of 22 shots, including 5 of 10 from three-point range.

"He can really, really shoot the ball," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "We tried a lot of things that obviously didn't work. (In overtime) they were so dependent on Klay at that point. We said let's try the box-and-one. It worked. I thought Brandon did a good job on him. Klay had to be getting tired."